by John O'Hara
“Who’s that?”
“Probably a friend of mine.” Eddie pushed the release button and then poked his head out and looked down the hall. “Who is it?”
“Mr. Brunner? My name is Malloy and I would like to talk to you spare a minute of your time I’d like to ask you a few spare if you—”
“Talk sense, what do you want? Oh, it’s you.”
“I think I’ll run along,” said Liggett.
“All right,” said Eddie. “I’ll send you those drawings. Where do you want them? Home or your office?”
“Uh—home, if it isn’t too much trouble,” said Liggett.
“Just as much trouble to send it home as to your office,” said Eddie. “Good day, sir.”
“May I come in?” said Malloy.
“Not if you’re going to get tough you can’t.”
“Oh-h, I remember you.”
“Yeah, you oughta,” said Eddie. “Well, what do you want? Are you looking for a piano player?”
“No, this is business. I’m a reporter. From the Herald Tribune.”
“Oh.”
“Well, it’s a living. Or was till today. I think this may be my last assignment, so help me out, will you? I got drunk yesterday on the Crowley story. Jesus, did they shoot up that place! You know the story?”
“I haven’t been out to get a paper.”
“Two-Gun Crowley? They got him yesterday. They had the whole Police Department up there, Ninetieth Street, West Side. Crowley and another guy and Crowley’s girl.”
“Oh, did they kill him?”
“No, not him. But he’ll burn. Whenever you kill a cop you burn. When two lines intersect the vertical angles are equal, and when somebody kills a cop they burn, and when I get excited on a story I usually get stewed. I told them I got some tear gas, but I didn’t get away with it.”
“Tell me some more about yourself, Mister.”
“No, not now. Some other time. Maybe tomorrow. I came here to ask you about this Gloria Wandrous. You were a pretty good friend of hers, weren’t you? You were, weren’t you?”
“Not the way you mean.”
“Well, that’s what I want to know. Who was? I want to get a line on her friends. I’m not writing the story. I’m just what they call digging up facts. Me digging up facts, for Christ’s sake. I write. I’m not a digger.”
“You’re an artist.”
“In my way. So are you. You probably think you’re a good painter. Another George Luks or uh, Picasso, to name two. The only two I can think of.”
“Listen, Bud, if it’s all the same to you.”
“Well, when did you last see Miss Wandrous?”
“About a week ago. No, I saw her Sunday night.”
“Mm. That’s very funny. Then it couldn’t have been you having lunch with her only yesterday at the Brevoort. She left first and you took a bus uptown. But of course if you say so.”
“Are you going to put this in the paper?”
“That’s what I’m supposed to be, a reporter.”
“Well, then you’d better get it straight.”
“I won’t get it straight if you hold out on me or lie. Listen, is this the first time you were ever interviewed by the working press? If it is, let me tell you something. The rest of the boys will be here in a little while. The Trib isn’t a scandal sheet so you’ll get a better break telling me the truth than telling me a lie. If you tell me the truth I’ll know what to print. But if you start telling those boys from the tabs lies they’ll have you tied in knots. They’re real reporters. I’m not. I’m the kind of reporter that wants to be a dramatic critic, but those babies will tear this place upside down—”
“And where will the police be while all this is going on?”
“Probably outside to see that you don’t get away. There’s one guy on this story that was born in this neighborhood, and he knows all the angles. Now you come across with some straight talk and then I’ll give you a lift uptown. Was she depressed when you saw her yesterday?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“She didn’t tell me. I thought she had spring fever.”
“She didn’t give you any hint of why she was depressed?”
“Nope.”
“Was she pregnant?”
“Liss-senn.”
“Who was she that way about? Quite a few, I gather, but which one in particular?”
“Nobody that I know of.”
“Was she married?”
“No. I’m pretty sure of that.”
“Now here’s one you won’t like. Is it true she took dope?”
“No, not since I knew her.”
“How long is that?”
“Two years.”
“Well, she didn’t tell you everything. She took dope all right. What about her relations with her mother and uncle? What about that uncle, by the way?”
“They seemed to get along all right. The uncle gave her a lot of money, or as much as they could afford. She had a good allowance and she always wore good clothes. That’s all.”
“One more question. Did she ever speak of suicide to you?”
“Sure. The way everybody does. I speak of it. Even you I imagine.”
“But specifically, jumping off the City of Essex. Did she say anything about that yesterday at lunch? Or any other time? What I’m trying to get at is, was suicide on her mind?”
“No, I wouldn’t say it was.”
“That’s what I think. There’s something screwy about this whole thing. I’ve read enough detective stories to know that a young girl, pretty and all that, she doesn’t pack her bag the way Gloria did just to knock herself off. That was a love trip, if you don’t mind my saying so. One more question, Mr. Brunner.”
“You said that a minute ago.”
“This is important. I just want to show you I’m not a complete dope. Have you been in communication with the family since yesterday?”
“No. I tried to get them by phone but they wouldn’t answer. I guess the phone—”
“Has been disconnected. I thought you’d say that. And so has yours been disconnected. And you weren’t out to get a paper today. So how do you know about this?”
“Say, you’re not trying to—”
“Just giving you a sample of what you’ll get from the boys and girls on the tabloids. Multiplied by fifty and you have an idea.”
“Well, my phone isn’t disconnected, so you’re wrong.”
“Yes, and you’re lying. Oh, don’t worry. I don’t think you did it. Come on, I’ll take you away from the wolves.”
“Will they really break open the apartment?”
“Oh, probably not. I’m just taking you uptown as a friendly act. They aren’t interested in you as much as in some elderly guy. That’s all I know about him, and that’s all they know. He was part of her past. A very big part, I should say. Coming?”
“All right.”
“I’ll buy you a drink. Jesus, guy, you don’t think I like this, do you? Have you heard any of the new Louis Armstrong records?”
“No new ones. What ever happened to the little dame you had that played the piano?”
“Married. That’s what we all ought to do. You too.”
“I’m going to.”
“I have a novel almost finished. As soon as I finish it and get the dough and stay on the wagon three months. You better lock your windows just in case.”
TWELVE
“I’m preparing a paper on New York newspapers,” said Joab Ellery Reddington. “Will you reserve a copy of all the papers for me every day?”
“Yes, sir. We don’t get them all, but I can order them for you if you tell me how long you’ll want them.”
“A month. Shall I pay you every day?”
“That’ll be all
right,” said the newsdealer.
And so every afternoon Dr. Reddington would go from his office in the high school building, down to the railroad station, and back to his office. He would open each paper so that the financial page was on the outside, and he would sit and read every word about the Wandrous case. With fear and trembling he watched the beginning, the growth, and the decline in references to an older man, a middle-aged man, an elderly man. Dr. Reddington still had in cash the money he was going to pay Gloria for her promise never to mention his name, and he carried this money with him all the time. He never knew when he was going to have to use it. He did not know where he would go, but he would go somewhere. Then one, then two, then all the papers described the man. A Major in the Ordnance Department during the War, whose name police refused to divulge. The police were good and sick of the case and only kept it open because one of the tabloids would not let it die down. The police said they only wanted the Major for questioning.
Then one day the police announced that the Major had died in 1925 of a heart attack on a train between St. Louis and Chicago. The body had been cremated and the urn reposed in a Chicago funeral home. After that Dr. Reddington continued to read the New York papers, but there were no more references to an elderly man, and in late August the doctor stopped the papers and joined his family, who were vacationing in New Hampshire. The Reddingtons always went to a hotel where the women guests were not permitted to smoke.